


Radical Acceptance

by thefourofswords



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Curtain Fic, M/M, relationship dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:33:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22258762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefourofswords/pseuds/thefourofswords
Summary: For all that Patrick knows Jonny better than he knows himself, there are certain adjustments that come with being in a romantic relationship with him, things that Patrick might’ve anticipated, but couldn’t fully account for until he was in it.
Relationships: Patrick Kane/Jonathan Toews
Comments: 27
Kudos: 263





	Radical Acceptance

When Patrick walked into a relationship with Jonathan Toews, it was a bit like having a beloved house undergo renovation. The structure and foundations remained the same, but a few walls got knocked out, more windows were put in for additional light, the carpet was ripped up to expose the hard wood. He knew this house and all of its weaknesses, but there it went, getting revised right under his feet. That comparison would probably make Jonny laugh, but whatever, Patrick does well with analogies. 

For all that Patrick knows Jonny better than he knows himself, there are certain adjustments that come with being in a romantic relationship with him, things that Patrick might’ve anticipated, but couldn’t fully account for until he was in it. 

Patrick can readily admit that most of his adult life he was trying to date a woman like his sisters or his mother. That was the best and greatest context Patrick had to understand romantic relationships. Comparing his previous girlfriends to Jonny would be a bit like trying to compare a really sexy sports car with a trim fighter jet, as in you couldn’t, because the two things had very different features and purposes and requirements. You could probably guess which one Jonny was. Patrick didn’t need a sports car or a fighter jet, they weren’t integral in any way to his daily functioning, but he finds that maybe, just maybe, the jet suits him better. 

Jonny is both dominant and assertive in a way that’s certainly unusual for women, but unique even for most men. It’s not a front, and Patrick has learned the pressure of that doesn’t get to someone who wears it so naturally, but sometimes, he’s so fucking good at doing exactly what Patrick wants. He lets Patrick slam him onto the bed like he doesn’t have thirty pounds on him, grins up at him so brightly and gives Patrick the space to take what he needs. Patrick is strong and flexible, but not Jonny strong in the way that comes not only from muscle mass and a larger frame, but also resilience to pain. Jonny can push past thresholds Patrick would never presume to cross. Patrick is hardy, but he’s also optimized his play to turn his size back into an advantage, a surgical scalpel and needle to Jonny’s hammer and wrench. Which makes the moments he displays just how precise he can be with all that strength all the more satisfying. Jonny’s hockey was getting him hard a long time before Patrick was willing to admit the rest of him was too. 

Patrick couldn’t say for certain if Jonny set his romantic and sexual defaults, but what with their relationship stretching so far back into his adolescence it certainly felt possible; locking in those command sequences so that Patrick responded well to somebody pushing back and giving him hell, somebody who had their shit so smoothly together, somebody whose ambition was so strong it dragged him along, taught him that same unshakable yearning. Or maybe that’s not it at all, maybe they’re the perfect symbiosis, the solid answer to every fault, weakness, strength, or preference. All he knows is, Jonny fits him, and they’re so tied together he’ll never know who he would’ve been without that. 

So maybe it’s not Jonny’s natural inclination to let Patrick hold his wrists down to the bed, to let Patrick dig possessive fingers into his hip, but Jonny still likes those things, which is fucking so goddamn lucky, because that’s what Patrick likes too. 

Sometimes he likes to remind Jonny who he’s got between his thighs, who he chose to fuck him, who he chose to love. Sometimes he wants to hold Jonny down and plow him senseless. And Jonny’s not a size queen, insofar as one can know such a thing from only having fucked one man. But the toys he owns aren’t anywhere near as big as Patrick’s actual equipment, and he would probably be perfectly happy to top Patrick for the rest of his life if Patrick was onboard, but he loves Patrick’s dick. And isn’t that just them? A study in necessary but unexpected opposites. 

Patrick will catch Jonny’s eyes on Patrick’s package sometimes, in the dressing room, in his suits, like he’s thinking about it at that very moment, thick and swollen up, taking him apart, or bouncing and slapping against his belly with every thrust of Jonny’s hips, because Jonny likes the suggestion of his flaccid cock, but what he really likes is erect, slick at the tip, head all pink and bulging. He loves to stroke him, to work his palm and fingers over Patrick, and Patrick had rarely met a handjob he didn’t like, but what Jonny does when he’s jerking Patrick off is something else altogether. 

Jonny has far less of an oral fixation than Patrick and a shitty gag reflex made worse by his fragile relationship with food. He doesn’t often want to give head, the way Patrick doesn’t often want to be fucked, but he will and that willingness, that despite Jonny’s preferences, some days Patrick has earned a fucking blow job and Jonny is going to give it to him is almost hotter than all the girls who ever eagerly choked themselves out on his generous girth. They don’t have perfectly matching preferences like Seabs or Cat brag about with their ladies, but they agree on the most important thing—wanting to make each other feel good. 

Jonny’s shudders and his furrowed brows and his white knuckled grip on the sheets and the way his voice catches, are that much sweeter for all they’re hardwon. Telling Patrick, “Don’t fucking make me beg for it, Peeks,” and then arching, strung tense enough to trap and hold Patrick right into the place he wants him. Fuck, Patrick didn’t even know how much he craved that until he had it. 

He thinks maybe that’s the biggest thing that’s different about sex with Jonny. Trust. Something Patrick doesn’t hand out easily, especially not in the places he’s most vulnerable. But he’d been building that trust with Jonny long before he ever fell into bed with him. Jonny will always help Patrick get him there. He’s not afraid of bruising Patrick’s ego, or ashamed of sharing his own desires, and he won’t take it personally if Patrick tells him to move differently, touch him somewhere else. And that ease, Patrick thinks, at least partially borne of their shared gender, but more likely formed through the experience of chasing Stanley cups and medals and rebuilding a languishing team, propping each other up the whole way. 

So Jonny will lie there and take it, and he will understand why Patrick needs this, and even better he’ll still come so hard from it, his voice will go raw from crying out. Patrick enjoys making Jonny scream all the more for how much harder it is. 

He loves the way Jonny knows that sometimes he’s a crier, how he’ll wrap himself around him tight, how he’ll sit on his dick and move so slow and torturous, til all Patrick’s got is a razor sharp desire to fucking come, and he won’t have any space left for what’s eating at him. 

How ‘I love you’ has very different meanings in the different places in their lives, but when Jonny says it in bed it hits him the tenderest fragilest part of him, the part that can’t help tying his value to what he does and how he produces, and not the man he is. The part that knows he’s hot shit, but who still craves hearing it. And Patrick fucks how he loves, guarded, sometimes struggling to articulate what he wants, but throwing his entire heart and soul inside it once he’s decided it’s safe. 

How dirty talk between them is telling Jonny, “I would die for you,” before creaming him up and Jonny just hanging on that much tighter, turning his face into the pillow like it’s hard to hear, and all Patrick can do is repeat it. “I would die for you.” 

And he can’t be mad that they didn’t find this sooner, because he can’t even imagine it happening it any different. There are some boxes that are rightfully marked ‘for when you’re older, when you know better, when you’ve had practice.’ 

And Patrick wants to win. He really fucking wants to win. But if they never make the playoffs again, he won’t ever regret it, because forging a life is more than how he makes his money. It’s learning that Jonny doesn’t love hockey the way Patrick loves hockey, whose devotion is mostly tied up in duty and purpose rather than joy, who’s already figured out who he is outside the sport, and figuring out how to accept that, because there is no threat here, Jonny chose hockey anyway, every step of the way he chose this. 

And most of all, Jonny is the right environment to be a Patrick Kane who likes who he is, who’s comfortable and safe and warm. So you see, their relationship really is like a house.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, firstly, to hatrickane for audiencing this. If it weren't for her I would've turned this into some humorous thing where he's trying to give Dylan advice and would've probably driven the whole thing off a cliff. 
> 
> hatrickane: "A house?"  
> hatrickane: "It's a METAPHOR, Dylan."  
> hatrickane: "But like, a house? Not a bridge or whatever?"  
> hatrickane: "Nuance is lost on you."
> 
> In this case, she was Patrick, and I was apparently Dylan. 
> 
> Also to her and turningterrific for being willing to have some pretty deep conversations about community, social-obligation, and self-care. I'd be lying if I said I didn't know where this fic came from, but at the same time, it still took me very much by surprise. Additional shoutout to fakexpearls, who I know probably won't read this, but who has also been an amazing shoulder through my treatment. Honestly, to all three of you, I don't have enough words. <3


End file.
